


new year's day

by blushao (horizsan)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, No Sexual Content, Not A Happy Ending, also halfway inspired by the song new year's day by taylor swift, if you're looking for fluff you're in the wrong place, loosely based off of the movie groundhog day, this is honestly really sad i won't lie
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23947924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horizsan/pseuds/blushao
Summary: In which Wonwoo has to relive the day Mingyu left, over and over again, and try (and fail) to fix it, over and over again, until he learns to let Mingyu go.
Relationships: Jeon Wonwoo/Kim Mingyu
Kudos: 14





	new year's day

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry in advance for tearing your heart out. i cried writing this, but i'm actually really proud of it so :)
> 
> enjoy!
> 
> warnings: angst, not a happy ending, profanity, alcohol usage, mentions of being drunk and hangovers

**[ TRIAL ONE ]**

The clock strikes midnight, and Wonwoo is pulled into a kiss by his boyfriend, Mingyu. He hears the faint click of a Polaroid camera, and pulls away, smiling. "Seriously?"

Mingyu lets out a soft chuckle. "Yeah, of course. I don't want to forget this when I wake up, you know?"

"Are you really that drunk?"

Mingyu's words slur together slightly as he replies, "Maybe."

Wonwoo grabs Mingyu's hand, and pulls the slightly drunk man up the stairs to their bedroom. "You need to go to sleep. Stay here, I'll go get you a glass of water."

Wonwoo battles his way downstairs, squeezing past absolutely wasted people either leaning against the wall in the stairwell or laying on the stairs groaning like they're on the verge of death. And maybe they are, considering the amount of alcohol that's probably in their system. After what feels like eternity, Wonwoo makes it to the kitchen, and pours Mingyu a glass of water. When he makes it back upstairs, Mingyu is no longer in their bedroom. _Fuck._

Wonwoo calls his name multiple times, but it's no use. He can barely hear himself over the din of the party. He makes his way through every room in the house, searching for Mingyu, to no avail. He doesn't see him anywhere. He pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and dials Jisoo's number. Thankfully, Wonwoo sees the other man answer from where he's standing in the kitchen with Jeonghan and Soonyoung. "Hello? Wonwoo, what are you doing calling me? I'm literally in your house."

"You think I'm going to try to talk to you over all this noise? You're on speaker right now and I can still barely hear you." Wonwoo sighs, and then asks, "Have you seen Mingyu? He was pretty drunk, so I took him upstairs and tried to get him to go to bed, and I came downstairs to get him a glass of water, and when I went back up, he was gone."

Jisoo stays silent on the other line for a few moments, but Wonwoo can see that his brow is furrowed. He's thinking. "No, I haven't seen him at all. Are you sure he's not in the house?"

"I checked every room, he's not here."

"Did you look outside?"

"It's so cold out, why would he be out there?"

"Just check. It can't hurt."

"Fine." Wonwoo hangs up the phone, and shoves his way through the sea of faces, most of which he doesn't recognize, until he reaches the front door. He grips the knob in his right hand, and pushes the door open. He steps out onto the concrete of the porch, shivering as the bitter winter air bites into his skin, penetrating through the sleeves of his sweater, and just as Jisoo had guessed, Mingyu is sitting on the porch steps.

Wonwoo bends down and rests a hand on Mingyu's shoulder, and in a hushed voice, says, "How about we get you inside? It's freezing out here, baby. Come on." He walks down the steps to approach Mingyu from the front, and takes both of Mingyu's cold hands in his own. "Let's go inside, Gyu." Wonwoo pulls Mingyu to his feet, and drags him inside, Mingyu shuffling his feet as he follows behind.

They fall asleep at exactly twenty five minutes past four in the morning. Most of the party guests have either cleared out or passed out by this time, and Wonwoo doesn't care about the party anymore. He just cares about Mingyu's solid warmth next to him, and in this moment, he thinks that's all he'll ever care about.

Wonwoo wakes up in an empty bed, the mattress on either side of him void of human warmth. He looks at the clock next to his head. It reads ten in the morning. He shoves the blankets off of him, and walks down the stairs into the living room. He almost trips over a random girl sleeping on the wooden floor, a pair of expensive-looking heels resting next to her head. There are a few other girls standing in the room, carrying their shoes in their hands, squinting their eyes shut tight as if that will make the excruciating pain of their hangover headaches go away. There's red glitter scattered all across the floor, and Wonwoo rolls his eyes. That'll take forever to clean up, and it'll never truly be cleaned up. Wonwoo is sure he'll be finding little pieces of the stuff in his hair, clothes, and other random places for the next few months at least.

Wonwoo notices drops of melted candle wax on the hardwood planks, which have solidified again, along with a few random Polaroids resting on the floor by the mantle. A closer look indicates they aren't random Polaroids. They're of him and his boyfriend, Mingyu: before, during, and after the New Year's kiss they'd shared at midnight. Wonwoo picks up the Polaroids, weaving his way through the hungover girls again, almost tripping over scattered alcohol bottles on his way back to the bottom of the stairs.

Wonwoo makes his way through the rest of the rooms in the house, searching for the other man in these grainy Polaroids, but there's no sign of Mingyu anywhere, which is strange, considering the place halfway belongs to him. Wonwoo tentatively calls out his name, not too loudly, considering he doesn't want the group of girls in the living room to track him down and kill him for aggravating their headaches. He hears nothing in response, and worry creeps up behind him, wrapping itself around his throat like a boa constrictor and tightening its grip until Wonwoo can't breathe.

He runs back up the stairs, scrambling to find his phone. His hands shake as he taps on Mingyu's contact and hits the call button, and his lungs feel like they're collapsing in on themselves as he listens to the phone ring once, twice, before it goes to voicemail. "Hello, if you're hearing this, it means I'm screening your call, haha. Kidding! Leave your name and phone number once you hear the beep and I'll call you back as soon as I can."

He'd hung up on Wonwoo. Wonwoo ends the call without bothering to leave a message, and slumps down to the floor, leaning against the bed frame. He'd known this would happen eventually. It always did. Expecting it doesn't make it hurt any less, though.

Wonwoo thinks back to New Year's Day last year, where he and Mingyu had shared a New Year's kiss simply because they were the only two people at the party who didn't have someone to kiss at midnight. When Wonwoo had woken up on Mingyu's kitchen floor the next morning, he'd ended up helping Mingyu clean up the bottles from the night before. And once they started actually dating months later, Wonwoo had realized he wanted to be there for all of Mingyu's midnights; he wanted to share all of those elated moments with him, the moments when they were too happy and filled with euphoria to think about anything else. But he also wanted to help clean up bottles in the morning-after, in that he wanted to have Mingyu's other side too, share the not-so-happy moments with him as well. He wanted to help Mingyu clean up the mess when life got rough, but apparently Mingyu didn't want the same thing.

Wonwoo had always known, somewhere deep down inside, that Mingyu never intended for their relationship to be permanent. Mingyu had even said it outright, multiple times. But last night, Wonwoo had allowed himself to hope. In the car when they were driving back home after buying booze for what was "going to be _the_ New Year's party of the century", Mingyu had squeezed Wonwoo's hand three times, the exact same way Wonwoo's mother used to do to tell him, "I love you." Mingyu knew exactly what that gesture meant to Wonwoo. And Wonwoo had allowed flowers of hope to blossom in his heart, allowed himself to believe for a second that maybe Mingyu really meant it.

And now, he sits here in what used to be their bedroom, calling himself a fool for ever having faith in such heresy. He sits here, and calls Mingyu, again and again and again, waiting hopelessly for an answer. He doesn't get one until he's called sixty two times.

Mingyu sounds angry as he snaps, "What do you want, Wonwoo?"

Wonwoo is a bit confused as to why he's so angry, and he's never liked hearing Mingyu angry. The gruffness his voice takes on is scary, in a way. Tears well up in Wonwoo's eyes, but he blinks them back. "I'm worried about you, where are you?"

"I left. You knew from the start this was never going to be permanent. I made sure you understood that, crystal clear," Mingyu says.

"Then why did you make me think it was going to be permanent? You're a living example of juxtaposition, Mingyu. You told me you would leave eventually, but then you move in with me, you squeeze my hand three times knowing what that means to me, and-"

Mingyu cuts him off, laughing. "Your friends warned you about me from the start, Wonwoo. They told you I'd hurt you eventually, and they were right. Never call me again. Goodbye."

Mingyu hangs up, and Wonwoo lets the tears fall from his eyes. They stream down his cheeks, and he chucks his phone at the wall, throwing his head back to scream at the ceiling. He curls up in a ball on the carpet of what used to be _their_ bedroom, but is now only his, and cries until he falls asleep.

**[ TRIAL TWO ]**

The clock strikes midnight, and Wonwoo is heavily confused. He could have sworn Mingyu left yesterday, but here they are, at the New Year's party again, kissing in front of the Polaroid camera in Mingyu's hand as the shutter clicks. His eyebrows draw together, and he dons what Mingyu always used to call his "thinking face". Is it "used to call"? Or is it "calls"? Is this the present, or the past? Wonwoo isn't sure anymore. The only thing he's sure of is the confusion brewing in the coffee pot of his mind.

"Mingyu, what day is it?"

Mingyu raises an eyebrow, and asks, "Why?"

"Just tell me, what's today's date?"

Mingyu still looks perplexed, but he answers, speaking slowly. "It's January first, as of a minute ago. Why?"

"I just wanted to make sure." Wonwoo's suspicions are confirmed. He's either gone batshit crazy, or he's reliving New Year's Day all over again. _Great_.

Mingyu is looking at him like he's gone insane, and the other man just nods, and Wonwoo can see his Adam's apple slide up and down in his throat as he swallows uncomfortably. "Right, um, okay. I'm gonna go mingle with our guests, you have fun."

Wonwoo stays in the kitchen for the rest of the party this time, talking to Jisoo, Jeonghan, and Soonyoung about everything and nothing. They discuss every topic under the sun, but none of it has any real importance or meaning. Things are a bit different this time, in that every so often, Wonwoo sees Mingyu pass by; he even comes into the kitchen once to grab a drink for Minghao, one of his old friends from college. But they don't interact with one another until all the guests who are still sober enough to walk have left.

Just like the first time, they crawl into bed together, but this time, Wonwoo can't seem to keep his eyes closed. He doesn't want to let himself fall asleep, because he now knows that sometime between the moment he falls asleep and the moment he wakes up, Mingyu disappears, and he doesn't want to let that happen this time. The universe is clearly giving him a chance to change things, and he'll be damned if he won't take it.

But the universe seems to have retracted the offer of its hand in helping, because whether Wonwoo wants to or not, he falls asleep, at 4:25 am, just like last time. And just like last time, he wakes up at ten to an empty bed and ruby-colored glitter all over his living room floor. He groans, and rather than going on a wild goose chase through the house to find a Mingyu he already knows is long gone, he picks up his phone and dials Mingyu's number. And just like last time, it rings once, twice, and then there's that awful beep before he hears Mingyu's voicemail, that "Hello, if you're hearing this..." that he can't bear to listen to. And just like last time, Wonwoo hangs up without leaving a message.

But this time, he doesn't spend hours calling Mingyu over and over again, just to get an angry answer when Mingyu finally does answer his phone. He calls Seungcheol instead. This is a safer bet, because Seungcheol is a friend of both of them, so he'll know where Mingyu is, and maybe be willing to tell Wonwoo that location, the street name or café that could change things for the better.

Seungcheol answers after four or five rings, Wonwoo isn't sure, he wasn't exactly counting. "Wonwoo? What's up?"

"Hi, Seungcheol. Do you, by any chance, happen to know where Mingyu is, or why he isn't answering my calls?" Wonwoo knows exactly why Mingyu's not answering his calls. But there's a part of him that wants to have it confirmed by someone else, to hear the words, "He left and he's not coming back," fall from someone else's lips. There's another part of him that never wants to hear those words, ever again, from anyone's vocal chords (especially not Mingyu's).

Seungcheol sighs, and says, "Wonwoo..." His voice trails off, which isn't a good sign at all. 

Wonwoo starts talking before Seungcheol can say anything, talking fast, the words tumbling from his mouth like drops of water from a stream rolling off the edge of a cliff to become a waterfall. "He left, didn't he? He finally did it, he actually left. I knew he'd leave, I know he left, I just...I was hoping I could find him and fix things or something."

Seungcheol sighs again, and Wonwoo can hear the tinge of sad sympathy in it. "Wonwoo, I'm sorry. I can't help you. You knew what you were getting yourself into going into this. You can't knowingly jump into quicksand and expect people to pull you out." Wonwoo winces at the last sentence, and it hurts because he knows Seungcheol is right. Seungcheol hangs up, and Wonwoo lets him.

Wonwoo calls every other friend of Mingyu's whose name he has in his phone. Some of them answer just to tell him to fuck off, others let it ring a few times and then hang up. Junhui answers the phone, inhales once, then hangs up, without even listening to Wonwoo say a single word. Wonwoo calls Mingyu again, still getting no answer. He calls two more times, then gives up. 

He curls up in a ball on the carpeted floor just like he'd done last time, and cries, tears making trails down his cheeks until he's exhausted, and can't keep his eyes open any longer.

**[ TRIAL THREE ]**

It's midnight for the third fucking time, and Wonwoo is kissing Mingyu at their New Year's party, just as he had done last night, and the night before that. Wonwoo sighs, and grumbles, "It's January first again, isn't it?"

Mingyu raises his eyebrows, confused again, looking at Wonwoo like he's crazy, _again_. "Um, yes? This is a New Year's party, Wonwoo. You know, to ring in the _new year_. So yeah, it's January first."

Wonwoo sighs, and mutters, "Just _peachy_ ," under his breath.

Mingyu walks away again, leaving Wonwoo to "be weird" by himself. Wonwoo opts to talk about nothing in the kitchen with his friends again, barely even noticing the few times Mingyu passes through. Wonwoo already knows exactly what's going to happen as soon as he falls asleep in Mingyu's arms at 4:25 exactly, and this time, he doesn't even bother trying to fight it.

When Wonwoo gets sleepy, he doesn't even try to fight the drowsiness overtaking his body, and simply lets sleep take him. And when he wakes up approximately five and a half hours later to an empty bed, yet again, he isn't surprised. He doesn't even bother to call anyone at all until three in the afternoon, and when he does call someone, he calls Seungcheol again, hoping the outcome of their conversation will be different this time.

It isn't.

He calls Mingyu once, and only once, and when he gets no answer, he doesn't cry this time. This time around, Wonwoo simply lays on the carpet, staring at the ceiling until his eyes burn and he physically cannot keep them open any longer, and lets himself fall asleep again, hoping that when he wakes up, it won't be New Year's Day.

**[ TRIAL NINE ]**

It's midnight yet again, and Wonwoo is honestly getting sick of it at this point. But after some trial and error, he thinks he's figured out a plan, one that might work. Wonwoo is standing in Mingyu's arms sharing a kiss like he has been every night for over a week. He grabs Mingyu's arm, and drags him toward the front door. "You and I need to talk."

"About what?"

Wonwoo sits down on the ice cold concrete of the front porch, and Mingyu takes a seat next to him. Wonwoo looks into his eyes, expecting to see concern, but Mingyu's eyes look void, empty of any emotion at all.

"Mingyu, I know you told me from the start this was never going to be permanent, but-"

Mingyu cuts him off, his voice as sharp and cold as the icicle above their heads. "But nothing. That still stands, Wonwoo. And if you can no longer handle the thought of that, then maybe you should leave first."

Wonwoo feels like he's been punched in the stomach, but more towards the area of the diaphragm, considering it feels like all the air has been knocked out of his lungs. He knows he sounds like he's about to cry, but he croaks out, "Maybe I should. But I'm not going to, because I lo-"

"No, you don't. Don't say that."

"But I do-"

Mingyu cuts him off again, with more authority in his voice this time. "No, Wonwoo." He pauses, massaging his temples for a moment while Wonwoo remains silent with bated breath, waiting for Mingyu to say something else. When he does, it's not what Wonwoo was hoping for at all. "You know what, I gotta go. I'll send someone by for my stuff in a couple days." Mingyu stands up, and goes back inside, probably to grab his coat from the closet in the hallway. He walks back out the front door and right past Wonwoo, without even acknowledging him at all. Minghao follows him, and the two men slide into a car together, and drive away, and Wonwoo can do nothing but watch them go.

Clearly, that plan wasn't as good as he'd thought it was. Wonwoo goes upstairs, locks himself in his bedroom, and starts writing down everything that usually happens on the New Year's Day he keeps reliving. He needs a better plan this time.

**[ TRIAL SEVENTEEN ]**

It's midnight again, and Wonwoo pushes Mingyu away before he can kiss him. Mingyu draws back, astonished, and exclaims, "Hey, what's up with you? You're not the type to turn down kisses."

Wonwoo sighs, turning his eyes to the hardwood floor, which already has a light coating of red glitter on it. "Just go. I know you're going to leave, you may as well do it now."

"How did you know I was planning on leaving tonight?"

At these words, Wonwoo snaps, and forgets that he'll be viewed as insane if he lets this out. He forgets all about that for a moment, as he struggles to spit the words out. "I know 'cause I've lived this _fucking_ day over and over again like seventeen times, and I'm so _fucking_ sick of watching you leave every night and not being able to fucking _do_ anything about it!"

Mingyu's lip curls, and he sneers at Wonwoo. "Uh, huh, yeah, okay. Tell me, who snitched?"

"I'm telling the truth. If you choose not to believe me, I don't care. Just leave, Mingyu. You want to. Just do it."

Mingyu rolls his eyes, and replies, "Alright then. Bye, Wonwoo." Mingyu gives Wonwoo one last kiss on the forehead, and Wonwoo wants to reach out a hand and slap him for it, because it burns worse than any forehead flick Jeonghan has ever given him.

Wonwoo goes outside to sit on the porch by himself after Mingyu leaves, and he thinks maybe it's a good thing. Maybe now that he's let Mingyu go by his own choice, this torturous cycle will stop. Of course, Wonwoo wants to hold on to the memories he and Mingyu made together, especially the time Mingyu accidentally punched that little kid in the face at the carnival when he was trying to win a prize for Wonwoo. No offense to the kid, but that was funny as _shit._

Wonwoo never wanted Mingyu to become a stranger whose laugh he could recognize anywhere, but sometimes it's better to let someone go than hold onto them too tightly.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed! feel free to leave a comment and let me know your thoughts, seeing comments in my inbox absolutely makes my day :)


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